Fast timing instrument for XEUS: Scientific expectations

摘要

X-ray timing with μsec time resolution can be used to probe strong gravity fields around collapsed objects and to constrain the equation of state of dense matter in neutron stars. With its large collecting area, XEUS will be ideally suited for very high signal to noise studies of such objects. An instrument dedicated to X-ray timing of bright Galactic sources has thus been foreseen as part of the XEUS instrumentation. In this contribution we present numerical simulations for silicon based detectors (silicon drift detectors and pixel based sensors) for a variety of astrophysical sources such as neutron star power spectra (including kHz quasi-periodic oscillations) and black hole lightcurves to illustrate the expected scientific capabilities of the fast timing mode instrument.